They have come to realize the value that remote machine support provides to their customers, as well as to themselves.
Many of them also will tell you that a lot of those customers still use "trusty" old dial-up modems, despite the drawbacks these have — meaning connections that can be unstable and unsecured, and it can take ages to transfer even a modestly sized file.
Belgium-headquartered eWon wants to give those companies more reason to break away from dial-up.
The company is unveiling the eWon Cosy (COmmunication made eaSY), a new range of industrial VPN routers for remote management of industrial equipment, and aimed at customers who need fast, cost-effective remote access to their PLCs. This solution is designed to replace old modem-based connections and take advantage of the customer's existing network.
Cosy 141 complements the existing range of PLC remote access solutions that includes the eWon 2005CD with alarming and 4005CD with data logging. The new product line is designed to have a long life in tough industrial settings with an extended 18-month factory warranty at a competitive price that allows customers, machine OEMs and system integrators to reach all their machines at the same price point as an industrial modem.
"For eWon, this is a new initiative to make remote access affordable to any industrial machine," says Dominique Blanc, eWon's U.S. general manager. "We noticed that many businesses are looking for a streamlined solution to access their machines remotely and to be in real-time communication with the automation equipment, including PLC, HMI, drive and IP camera to troubleshoot and help customers to recover, without traveling on site."
Cosy 141 with a new web interface is very easy to set up, Blanc says, adding, "Within 15 minutes, the engineer can use the secure VPN connection to reach any serial or Ethernet PLC. The experience is as good as being next to the machine and the engineer ‘goes live' to upload projects, gain remote use of an HMI, debug the PLC program and, if necessary, download new settings or program, all done remotely to immediately support the customer."
Pierre Crokaert, CTO and co-founder of eWon, says the new range is fully compatible with eWon's Talk2M application. Talk2M software provides a secure VPN communication route via the Internet between the user and the remote machine. "With a full integration of IT security standards, Talk2M enables Internet tunneling between the user and the remote machine without requiring any changes to IT network security settings at either end," Blanc adds. "This major breakthrough facilitates easy deployment at customer sites, and the user can only access devices behind the eWon unit and has no access to the customer LAN. It also provides full visibility with the connection report."
Serge Bassem, eWon's CEO, adds, "Cosy means instant access to the OEM's machines and faster reaction times. Because of remote support and maintenance, they will need to make fewer site visits. That saves time and money."
